d. boon was a fucking hero, and if you don't know who he was, fuck you.

Monday, May 19, 2008

In Which I Watch C-SPAN, And Am Disgusted

OK, it's late. I'm drunk.

But C-SPAN flipped my shit tonight.

It's the prototypical Senate subcommittee hearing: the Government Affairs Subcommittee on Government Information, in fact, chaired by Tom Carper (D - Somewhere). Testifying before the committee committee committee (sorry, it's just somehow fun to type that word committee committee committee), the Archivist of the United States, Allen Weinstein, was blase and reflective about Lockheed-Martin's software that the Nation Archives was using to store all government documents.

Wait, what?

Lockheed-Martin?

Really? Rilly? O RLY? 4RL?

Lockheed-Fucking-Martin?

Don't they make airplanes? And land mines, and super-secret-Navy-Seal-tell-you-hafta-kill-you stuff?

Do we really want Lockheed-Martin in charge of the PROGRAM FOR PRESERVING OUR NATIONAL HISTORY?

Worst part of it: the Inspector-General of the National Archives and Records Administration, Paul Brachfeld, quotes a Dave Matthews Bland lyric, and the subcommittee subcommittee subcommittee chairman winks at the motherfucker.

Salient quote: "People would be shocked at the kind of records we hold." Good thing that's all classified, then. Oh, wait, no it isn't.